Racial Slurs Painted On Water Tower

For the third time in recent months racial slurs have shown up in graffiti scrawled in Kootenai County.

“KKK,” “Hitler is a stud” and “White Power” were among the phrases spray-painted on the Post Falls water tower sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

The graffiti also urged violence against blacks, said Post Falls Detective Dick Halligan.

The Post Falls water department is offering a $500 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in connection with the slurs.

“In the most strong terms we denounce such hate messages,” said Tony Stewart, a board member of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. “Whoever does that kind of thing, if they think that it will persuade the good people of North Idaho, the answer is no.”

The weekend incident marked the second time the water tower has been vandalized.

The vandalism occurred sometime between 2 p.m. Friday and 11:25 a.m. Saturday. City water officials had painted over the graffiti by 1:30 that afternoon, at an estimated cost of $1,000.

This is the second time the water department has offered cash for information that will help police arrest and convict vandals.

Halligan said the money offer worked when the water tower was last spray-painted in August. A tipster turned in two 17-year-old boys, one from Coeur d’Alene, one from Post Falls.

The two did not spray racial slurs and instead told a detective, “They considered themselves artists and this was just their way of displaying their art.”

It cost the city $500.

In June, racist graffiti was scrawled across a Post Falls basketball court. In August, vandals spray painted racial epithets and swastikas on cement barriers at the skateboard park in Coeur d’Alene. The three youths were eventually caught. Investigators have no evidence the two Post Falls incidents are connected, said police Chief Cliff Hayes.

“There’s a long history of the people here denouncing that kind of behavior,” Stewart said. “When individuals do that kind of thing it is very clear evidence not only of their bigotry but their inability to understand that human beings are all deserving of respect. When they do that, they degrade themselves.”

Anyone with information about the vandalism is asked to call (208) 773-3517.

, DataTimes